Charles Alexander

Artist Biography

A passion for wild creatures and wild places has formed the central focus of artist Charles Alexander's life since early childhood. Born on the Texas Gulf Coast, Alexander grew up in an equestrian family in the countryside just outside of Memphis, Tennessee, a landscape that has changed dramatically over the years. Fascinated at an early age by exotic animals and foreign lands, Alexander began volunteering at the Memphis Zoo when he was twelve years old. By the age of eighteen, he had landed his first paying zoo job when he was asked to help hand-raise an infant lowland gorilla. With the goal of becoming a professional wildlife artist, he was fortunate enough to secure a full-time zookeeper position while still in college. For six years he found himself completely surrounded by the subjects of his art, prints and posters.

Alexander left the zoo in 1995 to paint animals full-time. A 1996 graduate of the University of Memphis with a degree in Natural History Illustration, he has also studied painting with the brilliant New York realist, Kathryn Manzo; with wildlife artist Robert Abbett at the Scottsdale Artist's School; and with the famed pastelist Daniel E. Greene. He was the Featured Artist of the Germantown Charity Horse Show in 1996 and 1997. His art, prints and posters have also appeared in a number of shows and events by Ducks Unlimited. His wildlife illustrations have been published in the United States and in Europe.

A painter in both pastels and oils, Alexander has also devoted himself exclusively to creating art, prints and posters based upon his zoo and museum research and upon his travels to such remote locations as Alaska and the Amazon rain forest. He is also currently at work on a book of drawings, paintings, and text that will re-create the people, landscape, and wildlife of the vast bottomland forest that once covered 25 million acres along the floodplain of the Lower Mississippi.

Charles Alexander Art, Prints and Posters Collection